By Mike Kunkle, Profit Team Consulting
One of the things that we commonly hear from our customers
is how hard it is to find employees. There are a variety of
things that go into getting the best people from new hire to
solid producing employee that adds value to the company.
We don’t often get the person that we thought we hired after
they have worked there for a short period of time. Once
again, there are a lot of potential reasons for the person to
not be successful in the position they were hired for and
need to be replaced.
States vary in how long you have to terminate a new hire
without unemployment penalties kicking in. The fear of an
unemployment percentage change can pale in comparison
to the other potential agencies an employee can get involved.
OSHA is an example if the new hire or even an
existing employee can be called and they can claim they
were terminated for being a whistle blower and then gain a
financial benefit for drawing light on the business needlessly.
I aim this article at new hires because a customer of ours just
had an issue that resulted in a person getting 6 week’s severance
after having worked there for less than 2 weeks and
immediately after he finished introductory training.
The site made the mistake of not keeping a meticulous employee
file. We live in a world that has a lot of information
flying around in it. You hear people say TMI for too much
information. When it comes to running and protecting our
businesses, I say that there is no such thing.
As I said in the first sentence, we always hear that it is hard
to find good people. We need to do more than say it, we
need to do 2 things. The first is get better at attracting and
interviewing people. The second is make the assumption
that they the new hire is going to fail and sue you. You hope
& pray this is not the case but if you prepare for it, you will
have your bases covered.
What does this mean? Everyone needs an employment file.
It should have their application and other forms that you
need to add them to your payroll. We all know that one
and do a good job on it. How many of you update the file
throughout the boarding process? The training schedule of
what was covered and when eliminates the he said she said
business. A running log of ANY issues regardless of size get
put on their record. Any formal or informal reviews need
to be documented. The thought of TMI should never enter
your mind. Paper and electronic storage are cheap and
documenting everything goes towards good housekeeping.
The electronics of today make this much easier. I had a
mentor that had everything written down in notebooks.
He filled a lot of them during his lifetime and having them
served him well. I worked for someone who required us
to carry a notebook in our pockets to document things and
ideas. Both believe / believed that information was knowledge
and knowledge lead to better results.
Why increase your risk of a problem when you can spend
a few minutes a day documenting a new hire and longer
term employees on a consistent / regular basis. We are the
small businesses that everyone seems to think have all of the
money and want to take from us. Good record keeping is
part of being a sharp operator.
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